Zambian team bus stoning has been a long time coming

Eyewitness News Journalist Lelo Mzaca writes in an opinion piece that last week's stoning of the Zambian team bus by two youngsters - aged 12 and 13 - has been a long time coming.

In the past decade in South African football, Mzaca says, we have witnessed intolerable and violent behaviour by spectators who invade pitches either in celebration or in protest of what has transpired on the field.

Throwing missiles is fast becoming the country's number one sport. "Who can forget when Kaizer Chiefs was charged by the Premier Soccer League after one fan threw a cabbage onto the pitch?" he asked. In the past, whenever a goal was scored the fans would celebrate by running across the pitch like a human tsunami with their fists in the air. "I say it was acceptable then, but times have changed and so should the behaviour of spectators."

The culture of hooliganism has been simmering in SA football for years now and what happened to the Zambian team is a sign of a new generation of football fans who refuse to accept that in a game, their favourite team cannot always win. In fact that team will inevitably lose sometimes, Lelo Mzaca writes for Eyewitness News.

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